Our last official day in China. We visited a local lama
temple. It was originally designed as a palace for a prince in the Qing dynasty
then converted into a religious temple some years later. It wasn’t the most exciting
place we visited on our trip. The architecture was nothing new and we had seen
Buddha statues before. It was fun though, in the middle of one courtyard they
had a statue people could throw money on. It was designed in the shape of a
mountain and it had intricate carvings, on the bottom represented Earth, the
middle top was heaven and the very top was a temple that represented the
highest level of heaven. People would toss coins and where ever it landed was
where your next life would be. Ryan threw a coin and it landed on the very top
part of the divine heaven. I tossed a coin and I was happy it managed to land
on the lower part of heaven but as it hit the pile it knocked two other coins
off…Oops.
Ever since we visited the first temple and I saw the people
praying with the incense I had been dying to try it myself. Buddhism was actually
my first “religion” growing up. It was the first one that really made sense to
me and I got very much into trying to create a zen lifestyle. As we passed one
of the kiosks where people prayed I saw two incense sticks in the garbage. It
made sense since you were supposed to have three, you can’t pray properly with
just two. But I picked them up, and as I did an older Asian gentleman instantly
handed me another one so I could have a complete set of three. Super excited I
lit my sticks on fire. I bowed three times in each direction as I addressed the
different levels of buddhas and I asked for guidance. When I was done I tossed
the sticks into the open fire. I felt fantastic.
In the afternoon we visited the Silk markets. It was a five
story indoor mall made entirely out of independent kiosk sellers. This place
was huge and consisted of every single thing you could ever want. I wasn’t
really a fan though. They were used to tourists so they were more pushy than
other places we had been (don’t go to the shoe section downstairs, those people
literally grab you as you walk by) and it was actually more expensive than
other vendors we had been to in the smaller towns. Even so, it was our last day
and we still had money to burn. I bought a nice tea pot and Ryan got some toys.
Dinner was special for our last evening. We had the infamous
Peking Duck China is known for. It was delicious and we said our official goodbye to our Wendy Wu Father, Gump. We had taken up a collection for him and he was very
embarrassed to take our generous tip but he deserved all of it and more. I’ve
already sung his praises but I’ll say it again, he took care of us like we
really were family and none of us will ever forget his kindness.
 |
| Chef preparing Peking Duck |
No comments:
Post a Comment